Managing people in organizations: Integrating the study of HRM and leadership

The studies of Leadership and HR-Management share a common goal: Developing a better understanding of how to effectively manage people in organizations. Despite this shared goal, these fields of research remain largely independent, with few studies considering how HRM and Leadership co-determine employee motivation and performance. This state of the literature is deplorable as Leadership and HRM have the potential to counterbalance each other; in theory as well as in research design. In this overview article to this special issue, we first highlight similarities and differences in approaches to people management by mapping key approaches to Leadership and HRM on a value framework. Next, we integrate theory on person-environment fit and strategic HR alignment to map seven possible ways in which Leadership and HRM may interact: Independent, Enactment, Supplementary Fit, Synergistic Fit, Complementary Fit, Perceptual Filter, and Dynamic Fit. We discuss the implications of this theoretical framework for future research that studies the intersection of Leadership and HRM.

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